Chapter
42

On the first Sabbath of November,
1846, after a retreat of eight days, I fell on my knees, and asked as a favour,
to be received as a novice of the religious order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate
of Longueuil, whose object is to preach retreats (revivals) among the people.
No child of the Church of Rome ever enrolled himself with more earnestness and
sincerity under the mysterious banners of her monastic armies than I did, that
day. It is impossible to entertain more exalted views of the beauty and holiness
of the monastic life, than I had. To live among the holy men who had made the
solemn vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, seemed to me the greatest and
the most blessed privilege which my God could grant on earth.

Within the walls of the peaceful monastery of Longueuil, among those holy men
who had, long since, put an impassable barrier between themselves and that corrupted
world, from the snares of which I was just escaping, my conviction was that
I should see nothing but actions of the most exalted piety; and that the deadly
weapons of the enemy could not pierce those walls protected by the Immaculate
Mother of God!

The frightful storms which had covered with wrecks the roaring sea, where I
had so often nearly perished, could not trouble the calm waters of the port
where my bark had just entered. Every one of the members of the community was
to be like an angel of charity, humility, modesty, whose example was to guide
my steps in the ways of God. My superior appeared to be less a superior than
a father, whose protecting care, by day and night, would be a shield over me.
Noah, in the ark, safe from the raging waves which were destroying the world,
did not feel more grateful to God than I was, when once in this holy solitude.
The vow of perfect poverty was to save me for ever from the cares of the world.
Having, hereafter, no right to possess a cent, the world would become to me
a paradise, where food, clothing, and lodging would come without anxiety or
care. My father superior would supply all these things, without any other condition
on my part, than to love and obey a man of God whose whole life was to be spent
in guiding my steps in the ways of the most exalted evangelical virtues. Had
not that father himself made a solemn vow to renounce not only all the honours
and dignities of the church, that his whole mind and heart might be devoted
to my holiness on earth, and my salvation in heaven?

How easy to secure that salvation now! I had only to look to that father on
earth, and obey him as my Father in Heaven. Yes! The will of that father was
to be, for me, the will of my God. Though I might err in obeying him, my errors
would not be laid to my charge. To save my soul, I should have only to be like
a corpse, or a stick in the hands of my father superior. Without any anxiety
or any responsibility whatever on my own, I was to be led to heaven as the new-born
child in the arms of his loving mother, without any fear, thoughts, or anxiety
of his own.

With the Christian poet I could have sung:

."Rocks and storms
I fear no more,
When on that eternal shore,
Drop the anchor! Furl the sail!
I am safe within the vail."

But how short were to be these fine
dream of my poor deluded mind! When on my knees, Father Guigues handed me, with
great solemnity, the Latin books of the rules of that monastic order, which
is their real gospel, warning me that it was a secret book, that there were
things in it I ought not to reveal to anyone; and he made me solemnly promise
that I would never show it to any one outside the order.

When alone, the next morning, in my cell, I thanked God and the Virgin Mary
for the favours of the last day, and the thought came involuntarily to my mind:
"Have you not, a thousand times, heard and said that the Holy Church of
Rome absolutely condemns and anathematizes secret societies. And do you not
belong, today, to a secret society? How can you reconcile the solemn promise
of secrecy you made last night, with the anathemas hurled by all your popes
against secret societies?" After having, in vain, tried, in my mind, to
reconcile these two things, I happily remembered that I was a corpse, that I
had for ever given up my private judgment that my only business now was to obey.
"Does a corpse argue against those who turn it from side to side? Is it
not in perfect peace, whatever may be the usage to which it is exposed, or to
whatever place it is dragged. Shall I lose the rich crown which is before me,
at my first step in the ways of perfection?"

I bade my rebellious intelligence to be still, my private judgment to be mute,
and, to distract my mind from this first temptation, I read that book of rules
with the utmost attention. I had not gone through it all before I understood
why it was kept from the eyes of the curates and the other secular priests.
To my unspeakable amazement, I found that, from the beginning to the end, it
speaks with the most profound contempt for them all. I said to myself: "What
would be the indignation of the curates, if they should suspect that these strangers
from France have such a bad opinion of them all! Would the good curates receive
them as angels from heaven, and raise them so high in the esteem of the people,
if they knew that the first thing an Oblate has to learn, is that the secular
priest is, today, steeped in immorality, ignorance, wordiness, laziness, gluttony,
ect.; that he is the disgrace of the church, which would speedily be destroyed,
was she not providentially sustained, and kept in the ways of God, by the holy
monastic men whom she nurses as her only hope! Clear as the light of the sun
on a bright day, the whole fabric of the order of the Oblates presented itself
to my mind, as the most perfect system of Pharisaism the world had ever seen."

The Oblate, who studies his book of rules, his only gospel, must have his mind
filled with the idea of his superior holiness, not only over the poor sinful,
secular priest, but over every one else. The Oblate alone is Christian, holy,
and sacred; the rest of the world is lost! The Oblate alone is the salt of the
earth, the light of the world! I said to myself: "Is it to attain to this
pharisaical perfection that I have left my beautiful and dear parish of Kamouraska,
and given up the honourable position which my God had given me in my country!"

However, after some time spent in these sad and despondent reflections, I again
felt angry with myself. I quickly directed my mind to the frightful, unsuspected,
and numberless scandals I had known in almost every parish I had visited. I
remembered the drunkenness of the curate, the impurities of this, the ignorance
of another, the worldliness and absolute want of faith of others, and concluded
that, after all, the Oblates were not far from the truth in their bad opinion
of the secular clergy. I ended my sad afflictions by saying to myself: "After
all, if the Oblates live a life of holiness, as I expect to find here, is it
a crime that they should see, feel, and express among themselves, the difference
which exists between a regular and a secular clergy? Am I come here to judge
and condemn these holy men? No! I came here to save myself by the practice of
the most heroic Christian virtues, the first of which, is that I should absolutely
and for ever, give up my private judgment consider myself as a corpse in the
hand of my superior."

With all the fervour of my soul, I prayed to God and to the Virgin Mary, day
and night, that week, that I might attain that supreme state of perfection,
when I would have no will, no judgment of my own. The days of that first week
passed very quickly, spent in prayer, reading and meditation of the Scriptures,
study of ecclesiastical history and ascetical books, from half-past five in
the morning till half-past nine at night. The meals were taken at the regular
hours of seven, twelve, and six o'clock, during which, with rare exceptions,
silence was kept, and pious books were read. The quality of the food was good;
but, at first, before they got a female cook to preside over the kitchen,everything
was so unclean, that I had to shut my eyes at meals, not to see what I was eating.
I should have complained, had not my lips been sealed by that strange monastic
view of perfection that every religious man is a corpse! What does a corpse
care about the cleanliness or uncleanliness of what is put into its mouth? The
third day, having drank at breakfast a glass of milk which was literally mixed
with the dung of a cow, my stomach rebelled; a circumstance which I regretted
exceedingly, attributing it to my want of monastic perfection. I envied the
high state of holiness of the other fathers who had so perfectly attained to
the sublime perfection of submission that they could drink that impure milk
just as if it had been clean.

Everything went on well the first week, with the exception of a dreadful scare
I had at the dinner of the first Friday. Just after eating soup, when listening
with the greatest attention to the reading of the life of a saint, I suddenly
felt as if the devil had taken hold of my feet; I threw down my knife and fork,
and I cried at the top of my voice, "My God! my God! what is there?"
and as quick as lightning I jumped on my chair to save myself from Satan's grasp.
My cries were soon followed by an inexpressible burst of convulsive laughter
from everyone.

"But what does that mean? Who has taken hold of my feet?" I asked.
Father Guigues tried to explain the matter to me, but it took him a considerable
time. When he began to speak, an irrepressible burst of laughter prevented his
saying a word. The fits of laughter became still more uncontrollable, on account
of the seriousness with which I was repeatedly asking them who could have taken
hold of my feet! At last some one said, "It is Father Lagier who wanted
to kiss your feet!" At the same time, Lagier walking on his hands and knees,
his face covered with sweat, dust, and dirt, was crawling out from under the
table; literally rolling on the floor, in such an uncontrollable fit of laughter
that he was unable to stand on his feet. Of course, when I understood that no
devil had tried to drag me by the feet, but that it was simply one of the father
Oblates, who, to go through one of the common practices of humility in that
monastery, had crawled under the table, to take hold of the feet of every one
and kiss them, I joined with the rest of the community, and laughed to my heart's
content.

Not many days after this, we were going, after tea, from the dining-room to
the chapel, to pass five or ten minutes in adoration of the wafer god; we had
two doors to cross, and it was pretty dark. Being the last who had entered the
monastery, I had to walk first, the other monks following me. We were reciting,
with a loud voice, the Latin Psalm: "Miserere mei Deus." We were all
marching pretty fast, when, suddenly, my feet met a large, though unseen object,
and down I fell, and rolled on the floor; my next companion did the same, and
rolled over me, and so did five or six others, who, in the dark, had also struck
their feet on that object. In a moment, we were five or six "Holy Fathers"
rolling on each other on the floor, unable to rise up, splitting our sides with
convulsive laughter. Father Brunette, in one of his fits of humility, had left
the table a little before the rest, with the permission of the Superior, to
lay himself flat on the floor, across the door. Not suspecting it, and unable
to see anything, from the want of sufficient light, I had entangled my feet
on that living corpse, as also the rest of those who were walking too close
behind me, to stop before tumbling over one another.

No words can describe my feelings of shame when I saw, almost every day, some
performance of this kind going on, under the name of Christian humility. In
vain I tried to silence the voice of my intelligence, which was crying to me,
day and night, that this was a mere diabolical caricature of the humility of
Christ. Striving to silence my untamed reason, by telling it that it had no
right to speak, and argue, and criticize, within the holy walls of a monastery,
it, nevertheless, spoke louder, day after day, telling me that such acts of
humility were a mockery. In vain, I said to myself, "Chiniquy, thou art
not come here to philosophize on this and that, but to sanctify thyself by becoming
like a corpse, which has no preconceived ideas, no acquired store of knowledge,
no rule of common sense to guide it! Poor, wretched, sinful Chiniquy, thou art
here to save thyself by admiring every iota of the holy rules of your superiors,
and to obey every word of their lips!"

I felt angry against myself, and unspeakably sad when, after whole weeks and
months of efforts, not only to silence the voice of my reason, but to kill it,
it had more life than ever, and was more and more loudly protesting against
the unmanly, unchristian, and ridiculous daily usages and rules of the monastery.
I envied the humble piety of the other good Fathers, who were apparently so
happy, having conquered themselves so completely, as to destroy that haughty
reason, which was constantly rebelling in me.

Twice, every week, I went to reveal to my guide and confessor, Father Allard,
the master of novices, my interior struggles; my constant, though vain efforts,
to subdue my rebellious reason. He always gladdened me with the promise that,
sooner or later, I should have that interior perfect peace which is promised
to the humble monk when he has attained the supreme monastic perfection of considering
himself as a corpse, as regards the rules and will of his superiors. My sincere
and constant efforts to reconcile myself to the rules of the monastery were,
however, soon to receive a new and rude check. I had read in the book of rules,
that a true monk must closely watch those who live with him, and secretly report
to his superior the defects and sins which he detects in them. The first time
I read that strange rule, my mind was so taken up by other things, that I did
not pay much attention to it. But the second time I studied that clause, the
blush came to my face, and in spite of myself, I said: "Is it possible
that we are a band of spies?" I was not long in seeing the disastrous effects
of this most degrading and immoral rule. One of the fathers, for whom I had
a particular affection for his many good qualities, and who had many times given
me the sincere proof of his friendship, said to me one day: "For God's
sake, my dear Father Chiniquy, tell me if it is you who denounced me to the
Superior for having said that the conduct of Father Guigues towards me was uncharitable?"

"No! my dear friend," I answered, "I never said such a thing
against you, for two reasons: The first is, that you have never said a word
in my presence which could give me the idea that you had such an opinion of
our good Father Superior; the second reason is, that though you might have told
me anything of that kind, I would prefer to have my tongue cut, and eaten by
dogs, than to be a spy, and denounce you!"

"I am glad t know that," he rejoined, "for I was told by some
of the fathers that you were the one who had reported me to the Superior as
guilty, though I am innocent of that offense, but I could not believe it."
He added with tears, "I regret having left my parish to be an Oblate, on
account of that abominable law which we are sworn to fulfill. That law makes
a real hell of this monastery, and, I suppose, of all the monastic orders, for
I think it is a general law with all the religious houses. When you have passed
more time here, you will see that that law of detection puts an insurmountable
wall between us all; it destroys every spring of Christian and social happiness."

"I understand, perfectly well, what you say," I answered him; "the
last time I was alone with Father Superior, he asked me why I had said that
the present Pope was an old fool; he persisted in telling me that I must have
said it, 'for,' he added, 'one of our most reliable fathers has assured me you
said it.' 'Well, my dear Father Superior,' I answered him, 'that reliable father
has told you a big lie; I never said such a thing, for the good reason that
I sincerely think that our present Pope is one of the wisest that ever ruled
the church.' I added, 'Now I understand why there is so much unpleasantness
in our mutual intercourse, during the hours we are allowed to talk. I see that
nobody dares to speak his mind on any grave subject. The conversations are colourless
and without life.'" "That is just the reason," answered my friend.
When some of the fathers, like you and me, would prefer to be hung rather than
become spies, the great majority of them, particularly among the French priests
recently imported from France, will not hear ten words from your lips on any
subject, without finding an opportunity of reporting eight of them as unbecoming
and unchristian, to the superiors. I do not say that it is always through malice
that they give such false reports; it is more through want of judgment. They
are very narrow minded; they do not understand the half of what they hear in
its true sense; and they give their false impressions to the superiors, who,
unfortunately, encourage that system of spying, as the best way of transforming
every one of us into corpses. As we are never confronted with our false accusers,
we can never know them, and we lose confidence in each other; thus it is that
the sweetest and holiest springs of true Christian love are for ever dried up.
It is on this spying system which is the curse and the hell of our monastic
houses, that a celebrated French writer, who had been a monk himself, wrote
of all the monks:

"Ils rentrent dans leurs monasteres sans so connaaitre; ils y vivent, sans
s'aimr: et ils se separent sans se regretter" (Monks enter a monastery
without knowing each other; they live there, without loving each other; and
they depart from each other without any regret.)

However, though I sincerely deplored that there was such a law of espionage
among us, I tried to persuade myself that it was like the dark spots of the
sun, which do not diminish its beauty, its grandeur and its innumerable blessings.
The Society of the Oblates was still to me the blessed ark where I should find
a sure shelter against the storms which were desolating the rest of the world.

Not long after my reception as a novice, the providence of God put before our
eyes one of those terrible wrecks which would make the strongest of us tremble.
Suddenly, at the hour of breakfast, the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice,
and grand vicar of the Diocese of Montreal, the Rev. Mr. Quiblier, knocked at
our door, to rest an hour, and breakfast with us, when on his way to France.

This unfortunate priest, who was among the best orators and the best looking
men Montreal had ever seen, had lived such a profligate life with his penitent
nuns and ladies of Montreal, that a cry of indignation from the whole people
had forced Bishop Bourget to send him back to France. Our father superior took
the opportunity of the fall of that talented priest, to make us bless God for
having gathered us behind the walls of our monastery, where the efforts of the
enemy were powerless. But, alas! we were soon to know, at our own expense, that
the heart of man is weak and deceitful everywhere.

It was not long after the public fall of the grand vicar of Montreal, when a
fine-looking widow was engaged to preside over our kitchen. She was more than
forty years old, and had very good manners. Unfortunately, she had not been
four months in the monastery, when she fell in love with her father confessor,
one of the most pious of the French father Oblates. The modern Adam was not
stronger than the old one against the charms of the new Eve. Both were found,
in an evil hour, forgetting one of the holy laws of God. The guilty priest was
punished and the weak woman dismissed. But an unspeakable shame remained upon
us all! I would have preferred to have my sentence of death, than the news of
such a fall inside the walls of that house where I had so foolishly believed
that Satan could not lay his snares. From that day, it was the will of God that
the strange and beautiful illusions which had brought me to that monastery,
should fade away one after the other, like the white mist which conceals the
bright rays of the morning sun. The Oblates began to appear to me pretty much
like other men. Till then, I had looked at them with my eyes shut, and I had
seen nothing but the glittering colours with which my imagination was painting
them. From that day, I studied them with my eyes opened, and I saw them just
as they were.

In the spring of 1847, having a severe indisposition, the doctor ordered me
to go to the Hotel Dieu of Montreal, which was, then, near the splendid St.
Mary's Church. I made there, for the first time, the acquaintance of a venerable
old nun, who was very talkative. She was one of the superiors of the house;
her family name was Urtubise. Her mind was still full of indignation at the
bad conduct of two father Oblates, who, under the pretext of sickness, had lately
come to her monastery to seduce the young nuns who were serving them. She told
me how she had turned them out ignominiously, forbidding them ever to come again,
under any pretext, into the hospital. She was young, when Bishop Lartigue, being
driven away from the Sulpician Seminary of Montreal, in 1823, had taken refuge,
with his secretary, the Rev. Ignace Bourget, into the modest walls of that nunnery.
She told me how the nuns had soon to repent having received the bishop with
his secretary and other priests.

"It was nearly the ruin of our community. The intercourse of the priests
with a certain number of nuns" she said, "was the cause of so much
disorder and scandal, that I was deputed with some other nuns, to the bishop
to respectfully request him not to prolong his stay in our nunnery. I told him,
in my name, and in the name of many others, that if he would not comply with
our legitimate request, we should instantly leave the house, go back to our
families and get married, that it was better to be honestly married than to
continue to live as the priests, even our father confessors, wanted us to do."

After she had given me several other spicy stories of those interesting distant
days, I asked her if she had known Maria Monk, when she was in their house,
and what she thought of her book, "Awful Disclosures?" "I have
known her well," she said. "She spent six months with us. I have read
her book, which was given me, that I might refute it. But after reading it,
I refused to have anything to do with that deplorable exposure. There are surely
some inventions and suppositions in that book. But there is sufficient amount
of truth to cause all our nunneries to be pulled down by the people, if only
the half of them were known to the public!"

She then said to me: "For God's sake, do not reveal these things to the
world, till the last one of us is dead, if God spares you." She then covered
her face with her hands, burst into tears, and left the room.

I remained horrified. Her words fell upon me as a thunderbolt. I regretted having
heard them, though I was determined to respect her request not to reveal the
terrible secret she had entrusted to me. My God knows that I never repeated
a word of it till now. But I think it is my duty to reveal to my country and
the whole world the truth on that grave subject, as it was given me by a most
respectable and unimpeachable eyewitness.

The terrible secrets which Sister Urtubise had revealed to me rendered my stay
in the Hotel Dieu as unpleasant as it had been agreeable at first. Though not
quiet recovered I left, the same day, for Longueuil, where I entered the monastery
with a heavy heart. The day before, two of the fathers had come back from a
two or three months' evangelical excursion among the lumber men, who were cutting
wood in the forests along the Ottawa River and its tributaries, from one to
two hundred miles north-west of Montreal. I was glad to hear of their arrival.
I hoped that the interesting history of their evangelical excursions, narrow
escapes from the bears and the wolves of the forests; their hearty receptions
by the honest and sturdy lumber men, which the superior had requested me, some
weeks before, to write, would cause a happy diversion from the deplorable things
I had recently learned. But only one of those fathers could be seen, and his
conversation was anything but interesting and pleasant. There was evidently
a dark cloud around him. And the other Oblate, his companion, where was he?
The very day of his arrival, he had been ordered to keep his room, and make
a retreat of ten days, during which time he was forbidden to speak to anyone.

I inquired from a devoted friend among the old Oblates the reason of such a
strange thing. After promising never to reveal to the superiors the sad secret
he trusted me with, he said: "Poor Father Dhas seduced one of his fair
penitents, on the way. She was a married woman, the lady of the house where
our missionaries used to receive the most cordial hospitality. The husband having
discovered the infidelity of his wife, came very near killing her; he ignominiously
turned out the two fathers, and wrote a terrible letter to the superior. The
companion of the guilty father denounced him, an confessed everything to the
superior, who has seen that the letter of the enraged husband was only giving
too true and correct a version of the whole unfortunate and shameful occurrence.
Now, the poor, weak father for his penance, is condemned to ten days of seclusion
from the rest of the community. He must pass that whole time in prayer, fasting,
and acts of humiliation, dictated by the superior."

"Do these deplorable facts occur very often among the father Oblates?"
I asked.

My friend raised his eyes, filled with tears, to heaven, and with a deep sigh,
he answered: "Dear Father Chiniquy, would to God that I might be able to
tell you that it is the first crime of that nature committed by an Oblate. But
alas! you know, by what has occurred with our female cook not long ago, that
it is not the first time that some of our fathers have brought disgrace upon
us all. And you know also the abominable life of Father Telmont with the two
nuns at Ottawa!"

"If it be so," I replied, "where is the spiritual advantage of
the regular clergy over the secular?"

"The only advantage I see," answered my friend, "is that the
regular clergy gives himself with more impunity to every kind of debauch and
licentiousness than the secular. The monks being concealed from the eyes of
the public, inside the walls of their monastery, where nobody, or at least very
few people, have any access, are more easily conquered by the devil, and more
firmly kept in his chains, than the secular priests. The sharp eyes of the public,
and the daily intercourse the secular priests have with their relations and
parishioners, form a powerful and salutary restraint upon the bad inclinations
of our depraved nature. In the monastery, there is no restraint except the childish
and ridiculous punishments of retreats, kissing of the floor, or of the feet,
prostration upon the ground, as Father Burnette did, a few days after your coming
among us.

"There is surely more hypocrisy and selfishness among the regular than
the secular clergy. That great social organization which forms the human family
is a divine work. Yes! those great social organizations which are called the
city, the township, the country, the parish, and the household, where every
one is called to work in the light of day, is a divine organization, and makes
society as strong, pure, and holy as it can be.

"I confess that there are also terrible temptations, and deplorable falls
there, but the temptations are not so unconquerable, and the falls not so irreparable,
as in these dark recesses and unhealthy prisons raised by Satan only for the
birds of night, called monasteries or nunneries.

"The priest and the woman who falls in the midst of a well-organized Christian
society, break the hearts of the beloved mother, covers with shame a venerable
father, cause the tears of cherished sisters and brothers to flow, pierce, with
a barbed arrow, the hearts of thousands of friends; they for ever lose their
honour and good name. These considerations are so many providential, I dare
say Divine, shields, to protect the sons and daughters of Eve against their
own frailty. The secular priest and the women shrink before throwing themselves
into such a bottomless abyss of shame, misery, and regret. But behind the thick
and dark walls of the monastery, or the nunnery, what has the fallen monk or
nun to fear? Nobody will hear of it, no bad consequences worth mentioning will
follow, except a few days of retreat, some insignificant, childish, ridiculous
penances, which the most devoted in the monastery are practicing almost every
day.

"As you ask me in earnest what are the advantages of a monastic life over
a secular, in a moral and social point of view, I will answer you. In the monastery,
man, as the image of God, forgets his divine origin, loses his dignity; and
as a Christian, he loses the most holy weapons Christ has given to His disciples
to fight the battle of life. He, at once and for ever, loses that law of self-respect,
and respect for others, which is one of the most powerful and legitimate barriers
against vice. Yes! That great and divine law of self-respect, which God Himself
has implanted in the heart of every man and woman who live in a Christian society,
is completely destroyed in the monastery and nunnery. The foundation of perfection
in the monk and the nun is that they must consider themselves as corpses. Do
you not see that this principle strikes at the root of all that God has made
good, grand, and holy in man? Does it not sweep away every idea of holiness,
purity, greatness! every principle of life which the Gospel of Christ had for
its mission to reveal to the fallen children of Adam?

"What self-respect can we expect from a corpse? and what respect can a
corpse feel for the other corpses which surround it? Thus it is that the very
idea of monastic perfection carries with it the destruction of all that is good,
pure, holy, and spiritual in the religion of the Gospel. It destroys the very
idea of life to put death into its place.

"It is for that reason that if you study the true history, not the lying
history, of monachism, you will find the details of a corruption impossible,
anywhere else, not even among the lowest houses of prostitution. Read the Memoirs
of Scipio de Ricci, one of the most pious and intelligent bishops our Church
has ever had, and you will see that the monks and the nuns of Italy live the
very life of the brutes in the fields. Yes! read the terrible revelations of
what is going on among those unfortunate men and women, whom in the iron hand
of monachism keeps tied in their dark dungeons, you will hear from the very
lips of the nuns that the monks are more free with them than the husbands are
with their legitimate wives; you will see that every one of those monastic institutions
is a new Sodom!

"The monastic axiom, that the highest point of perfection is attained only
when you consider yourself a corpse in the hand of your superior, is anti-social
and Antichristian: it is simply diabolical. It transforms into a vile machine
that man whom God had created in His likeness, and made for ever free. It degrades
below the brute that man whom Christ, by His death, has raised to the dignity
of a child of God, and an inheritor of an eternal kingdom in Heaven. Everything
is mechanical, material, false, in the life of a monk and a nun. Even the best
virtues are deceptions and lies. The monks and the nuns being perfect only when
they have renounced their own free-will and intelligence to become corpses,
can have neither virtues or vices.

"Their best actions are mechanical. Their acts of humility are to crawl
under the table and kiss the feet of each other, or to make a cross on a dirty
floor with the tongue, or lie down in the dust to let the rest of the monks
or the nuns pass over them! Have you not remarked how those so-called monks
speak with the utmost contempt of the rest of the world? One must have opportunities
as I have had of seeing the profound hatred which exists among all monastic
orders against each other. How the Dominicans have always hated the Franciscans,
and how they both hate the Jesuits, who pay them back in the same coin! What
a strong and nameless hatred divides the Oblates, to whom we belong, from the
Jesuits! The Jesuits never lose an opportunity of showing us their supreme contempt!
You are aware that, on account of those bad feelings, it is absolutely forbidden
to an Oblate to confess to a Jesuit, as we know it is forbidden to the Jesuits
to confess to an Oblate, or to any other priest.

"I need not tell you, for you know, that their vow of poverty is a mask
to help them to become rich with more rapidity than the rest of the world. Is
it not under the mask of that vow that the monks of England, Scotland, and France
became the masters of the richest lands of those countries, which the nations
were forced, by bloody revolutions, to wrench from their grasp?

"Is it not still under the mask of extreme poverty that the monks of Italy
are among the richest proprietors in that unfortunate country?

"I have seen much more of the world than you. When a young priest, I was
the chaplain, confessor, and intimate friend of the Duchess de Berry, the mother
of Henry V, now the only legitimate king of France. When, in the midst of those
great and rich princes and nobles of France, I never saw such a love of money,
of honour, of vain glory, as I have seen among the monks since I have become
one of them. When the Duchess de Berry finished her providential work in France,
after making the false step which ruined her, I threw myself into the religious
order of the Chartreux. I have lived several years in their palatial monastery
of Rome; have cultivated and enjoyed their sweet fruits in their magnificent
gardens; but I was not there long without seeing the fatal error I had committed
in becoming a monk. During the many years I resided in that splendid mansion,
where laziness, stupidity, filthiness, gluttony, superstition, tediousness,
ignorance, pride, and unmentionable immoralities, with very few exceptional
cases, reigned supreme, I had every opportunity to know what was going on in
their midst. Life soon became an unbearable burden, but for the hope I had of
breaking my fetters. At last I found out that the best, if not the only way
of doing this, was to declare to the Pope that I wanted to go and preach the
gospel to the savages of America, which was, and is still true.

"I made my declaration, and by the Pope's permission the doors of my goal
were opened, with the condition that I should join the order of the Oblates
Immaculate, in connection with which I should evangelize the savages of the
Rocky Mountains.

"I have found among the monks of Canada the very same things I have seen
among those of France and Italy. With very few exceptions they are all corpses,
absolutely dead to every sentiment of true honesty and real Christianity; they
are putrid carcasses, which have lost the dignity of manhood.

"My dear Father Chiniquy," he added, "I trust you as I trust
myself, when I tell you for our own good a secret which is known to God alone.
When I am on the Rocky Mountains, I will raise myself up, as the eagles of those
vast countries, and I shall go up to the regions of liberty, light, and life;
I will cease being a corpse, to become what my God has made me a free and intelligent
man: I will cease to be a corpse, in order to become one of the redeemed of
Christ, who serve God in spirit and in truth.

"Christ is the light of the world; monachism is its night! Christ is the
strength, the glory, the life of man; monachism is its decay, shame, and death!
Christ died to make us free; the monastery is built up to make slaves of us!
Christ died that we might be raised to the dignity of children of God; monachism
is established to bring us down much below he living brutes, for it transforms
us into corpses! Christ is the highest conception of humanity; monachism is
its lowest!

"Yes, yes, I hope my God will soon give me the favour I have asked so long!
When I shall be on the top of the Rocky Mountains, I will, for ever, break my
fetters. I will rise from my tomb; I will come out from among the dead, to sit
at the table of the redeemed, and eat the bread of the living children of God!"

I do regret that the remarkable monk, whose abridged views on monachism I have
here given, should have requested me never to give his name, when he allows
me to tell some of his adventures, which will make a most interesting romance.
Faithful to his promise, he went, as an Oblate, to preach to the savages of
the Rocky Mountains, and there, without noise, he slipped out of their hands;
broke his chains to live the life of a freedman of Christ, in the holy bonds
of a Christian marriage with a respectable American lady.

Weak and timid soldier that I was once; frightened by the ruins spread everywhere
on the battle-field, I looked around to find a shelter against the impending
danger; I thought that the monastery of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate was one
of those strong towers, built by my God, where the arrows of the enemy could
not reach me, and I threw myself into it.

But, hardly beginning to hope that I was out of danger, behind those dark and
high walls, when I saw them shaking like a drunken man; and the voice of God
passed like a hurricane over me.

Suddenly, the high towers and walls around me fell to the ground, and were turned
into dust. Not one stone remained on another.

And I heard a voice saying to me: "Soldier! come out and get in the light
of the sun; trust no more in the walls built by the hand of man; they are nothing
but dust. Come and fight in the open day, under the eyes of God, protected only
by the gospel banner of Christ! come out from behind those walls they are a
diabolical deception, a snare, a fraud!"

I listened to the voice, and I bade adieu to the inmates of the monastery of
the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

When, on the 1st of November, 1847, I pressed them on my heart for the last
time, I felt the burning tears of many of them falling on my cheeks, and my
tears moistened their faces: for they loved me, and I loved them. I had met
there several noble hearts and precious souls worthy of a better fate. Oh! if
I could have, at the price of my life, given them the light and liberty which
my merciful God had given me! But they were in the dark; and there was no power
in me to change their darkness into light. The hand of God brought me back to
my dear Canada, that I might again offer it the sweat and the labours, the love
and life of the least of its sons.